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On Darren's suggestion, tonight's photos were taken in Shutter Speed Priority Mode.Photos taken after 6pm Aug 5. Lens was the 55-200mm VR kit. Camera held with just the right hand as I was flying the kites with my left hand.

It looks like I have to get to at least 1/800th second when the lens is on about 100mm. That just seems inordinately fast to eliminate blur in the photo.

Am I overlooking something? I always thought if your shutter speed was 1/lens length, the camera motion was moot. Maybe I'm getting kite motion, although the kites were close to stalled on the 30 foot lines.

I do like the look of the photos. Higher winds so vented kites.Again, open to suggestions.

The 1/lens length this is a rule of thumb for 35mm SLRs, and it's more like, "if I really try, I can get a steady shot at 1/60 second"

Two differences here. This isn't a 35mm camera. You've got some sort of magnification factor due to sensor size. 100mm isn't the same as 100mm...

That's maybe a contributing factor, but I'd say you've got camera movement and kite movement working against each other. No way you're holding the camera super steady one handed while flying and no way the kite is always pasted to the sky. Camera moved one way a tiny bit and at the same instant the kite moves the other way. Motion in opposite directions is exaggerated in camera.

I wouldn't rely on that rule of thumb with a moving object involved and especially one-handed shooting, even in bright sunlight. Also, a telephoto lens magnifies any movement whatsoever.

From my experience as a newspaper photog and shooting sports for almost 40 years, the faster the "shutter" speed, the shaper the photo, especially in one-handed mode, if you want to stop action and depth of field is not a concern.

Blur in those days was the bane of every news photog using a 35 mm since most focal plane shutters synced with strobes at 1/60 of a second. You had to be very steady for low-light shots without flash or risk a ghost image with a flash.

Those days for me were 15 to 40 years ago when film camera popularity reached its peak.

I can't remember from the original thread, are you shooting RAW format?

If you are, you made need to adjust how much sharpening you apply. By default, JPG format applies sharpening. RAW format does not. Your processing software can be adjusted (usually) to apply a predetermined amount of sharpening.

This was a surprise to me when I first bought my dslr and started shooting raw. I still struggle sometimes to find the right level of sharpening.

The camera has a 1.5 magnification. The 100mm I stated earlier already took the magnification into count. The lens was on 65mm.

quincy,

The camera is set to record in JPEG fine (1/4 compression). I haven't tried RAW, nor have I ever used RAW. I probably should, but hated the file size. My 5 year old Mac's hard drive always seems to be near capacity and I'm too lazy to put in a larger HD.

The camera is set to record in JPEG fine (1/4 compression). I haven't tried RAW, nor have I ever used RAW. I probably should, but hated the file size. My 5 year old Mac's hard drive always seems to be near capacity and I'm too lazy to put in a larger HD.

So much for that suggestion.

File size is a big issue with RAW. The trade-off is more complete user control of the final image quality and higher bit depth. You have access to everything the sensor captured without the camera deciding what to compress, process or throw away. The downside is large file sizes and, until the operator is comfortable, longer post-processing times. I definitely am slower at processing and posting photos now that I am shooting RAW.

You might try adjusting the default sharpening that your camera applies. I don't know where that is in Nikon's menu (Canon user).

Just reading about your RAW dilema, true the file is larger, but the bonuses in post processing with all that extra data makes up for it I think. What software are you using for your post production?

Photoshop CS2-4 has, in the 'smart sharpening' tool, a feature that will even have a fair go at tackling movement blur.

With regards to storage, why not pick up one of those external drives for long term storage, a quick fix that only requires a little change to your work flow. And being outside the computer it is possibly even more stable in the long run.

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